In suburbs of L.A., a cottage industry of birth tourism

USA Baby Care's website makes no attempt to hide why the company's clients travel to Southern California from China and Taiwan. It's to give birth to an American baby.

"Congratulations! Arriving in the U.S. means you've already given your child a surefire ticket for winning the race," the site says in Chinese. "We guarantee that each baby can obtain a U.S. passport and related documents."

That passport is just the beginning of a journey that will lead some of the children back to the United States to take advantage of free public schools and low-interest student loans, as the website notes. The whole family may eventually get in on the act, since parents may be able to piggyback on the child's citizenship and apply for a green card when the child turns 21.

USA Baby Care is one of scores, possibly hundreds, of companies operating so-called maternity hotels tucked away in residential neighborhoods in the San Gabriel Valley, Orange County and other Southern California suburbs. Pregnant women from Chinese-speaking countries pay as much as $20,000 to stay in the facilities during the final months of pregnancy, then spend an additional month recuperating and awaiting the new baby's U.S. passport.

Many of the hotels operate in violation of zoning laws, their locations known mainly to neighbors who observe the expectant mothers' frequent comings and goings.

Such was the case in Chino Hills, where residents recently protested an alleged maternity hotel operating in a hilltop mansion

I’ll tell you about another cottage industry I recently found about....Apparently, the suburbs of New York are full of homes housing foreign exchange students whose parents pay BIG BUCKS for them to stay and get and education here (Why, only God knows). There are some communities there, I guess, who have great school districts. Students, mostly Chinese, send their kids and pay huge amounts to host families. An old neighbor of mine was telling me about it. She does it herself.. I’m not talking about the old kind of foreign exchange student deals where you did it as a kindness.. I’m talking about a big buck business.

The problem is that China does not represent any sort of freedom that the US still has. That, and the gradual harmonization of Taiwan to Chinese interests does not make things any better.

Since Tiananmen Square happened, having any presence in that country (or providing any aid/support to China) signals someone’s choice to give up individual freedom. That country decided on that day to extinguish it and distract people economically by making the country a ready source of indoctrinated and unfree labor(read: they are far less likely to ask pesky questions without fear of government action coming down on them).

It may be difficult to believe, but as bad as things have gotten at the elementary, middle and high school level, American schools at the college and graduate level are still considerably better than those in most of the rest of the world.

There's also the issue of acquiring fluency in English. That is an extremely marketable skill in many parts of the world. Getting an American bachelor's degree from an American university studying in English, with good grades, is a pretty good indicator of someone’s ability to function in English.

My (Korean) wife and I built a house large enough to eventually accommodate six of our eight nieces and nephews, plus my wife's elderly parents. He was a South Korean Army medic and our local Korean War Veterans association has agreed to conduct military honors for him upon his death. Two of my nieces are already here, one in eighth grade at a private Christian school and the other in college.

We (or their parents, depending on finances of each family) will pay all the bills. No tax dollars are involved, and this seems to me like a win-win situation for everyone. In fact, we're paying considerably higher college tuition for them as international students than even what would be paid for out-of-state students.

American law allows us to adopt the youngest niece, which we are doing (we have no biological children ourselves), which will make her an American citizen, but the rest will remain South Korean citizens with one exception who is planning to enlist in the US Army under a special program for non-citizens. Her father was in the South Korean special forces, she wants a military career, and the US Army offers many more opportunities for women than the South Korean military.

Many American universities have large numbers of foreign students, there's a long history of relatives bringing younger students to America for study even before college (Madame Chiang Kai-shek was one example).

I don't see how this is a bad thing — American schools get tuition money they normally wouldn't get, and foreign students get to see more of American values and learn to become fluent in English.

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